By Politico staff writer
President Julius Maada Bio has formally opened the clubhouse of Bo Rangers football club in the Katanga area of the City. The president described the ultra-modern clubhouse and secretariat with state-of-the-art-facilities as the product of “sacrifice, leadership and organization” and called on the players and technical staff to be inspired by the investment to produce good results on the field of play.
The president said it “takes good leadership like that displayed by Babadie Kamara and his team to build the first ever clubhouse in the history of Sierra Leone football”. He said such investment falls within his human capital development agenda “as long as it will help human beings make themselves useful citizens of Sierra Leone”.
The president took the opportunity to address wider development issues including the development of the compact program of the Millennium Challenge Corporation which could give this country up to 400 million US dollars in development aid, the invitation extended to Sierra Leone to participate in an important education conference in London by the British government and the extensive upgrade of the electricity distribution system in the city of Bo to eventually increase and sustain power supply to the city. He urged the people of Bo to be patient as the government’s efforts in these areas will soon bear fruits.
In his address earlier, the Executive Chairman of Bo Rangers football club, Babadie Kamara said in 2018, he was ‘persuaded’ by Chris Kamara, the General Secretary of the SLFA to support Bo Rangers as the league season was about to begin. He said he took over “at a very challenging moment in the club’s history: match outcomes were unimpressive as there was paucity of good players and coaching staff”.
According to Kamara he “inherited a bank account with a cash balance of less than Le. 10 million. Today, I am also happy to inform you all that the club has cash balance of more than Le. 1 billion generated inter alia, from gate proceeds, donations by well-meaning supporters and members of the club, sale of jerseys and support from FIFA/CAF corona relief to clubs received through the SLFA. We are today the envy of all clubs in Sierra Leone because we have made accountability and transparency the hallmark of our administration”.
The Executive Chairman said there were initial doubts when he set out his three objectives to “structure the club, have a clubhouse and secretariat, and win the league championship. While the first two goals have been achieved today, it won’t be long to achieve my third and most challenging aim of winning the premier league”.
Turing to the challenges at the Bo Stadium where they host matches, Chairman Kamara told the audience that from its initial 20,000 capacity projection, the facility now caters for only a maximum capacity of 4,000 and “this does not only disadvantage Bo Rangers in terms of revenue generation when compared to teams in Freetown, for example, but risks leading to overcrowding and likely stampede especially in high profile matches”.
He said “it has been three years since the floodlights and scoreboard at the Bo Stadium became dysfunctional and we are yet to see concrete steps being taken to address the situation. We hold the view that if these facilities are fixed as in the case of the national stadium, it will help event organisers generate more revenue”.
He pleaded with president Bio to ensure a “holistic rehabilitation and installation of a state-of-the-art artificial turf and facilities” at Coronation Field for it to serve as an alternative to the Bo Stadium.
The Bo Rangers fan club chairman Tejan Koroma also addressed the occasion which was chaired by the Minister of Energy Alhai Kanja Sesay.
The facility will house players and administrative staff of Bo Rangers Football Club.
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